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American Psycho
Lions Gate Films


8.4

based on 35 reviews
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based on 34 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, sexuality, drug use and language

Starring Christian Bale, Willem DaFoe, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, and Chloe Sevigny

Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis and featuring the sounds of Huey Lewis and other classic early 80s gems, this satire set in 1980s Manhattan follows the dual life of Patrick Bateman (Bale), zealously materialistic and misogynisitc Wall Street executive by day, murdering sociopath by night.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Bret Easton Ellis (novel) Mary Harron Guinever Turner
DIRECTED BY:	Mary Harron
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 5, 2000 Video: September 5, 2000 Theatrical: April 14, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Canada / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A lean and mean horror comedy classic.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Funny, pungent, and weirdly gripping.

Time Richard Corliss

But the carnage, like the sex scenes, is shot so pristinely that it becomes a nouvelle-cuisine feast; this is a splatter film Martha Stewart could love.

TNT RoughCut Don Kaye

A provocative success; wiping away the gore, Harron and Bale have found a mirror that forces us to look at ourselves and ask tough, disturbing questions -- which is ultimately what the best satire always does.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

An uneven movie that nonetheless bristles with stinging wit and exerts a perverse fascination.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

An ethereal, creepy, almost breathtaking meditation on the life of a mind snapped in two.

Film.com Peter Brunette

Harron's adaptation of Ellis's novel is brilliant, probably better than the book itself.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The slick satire cleverly equates materialism, narcissism, misogyny, and classism with homicide, but you may laugh so loud at the protagonist that you won't be able to hear yourself laughing with him.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

Bateman could have been much more interesting if he'd been played by someone who wouldn't need to work quite so hard (Charlie Sheen or Rob Lowe might have been fascinating here).

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Cloaking (Bateman's) world in a hyperrealist light so sharp you could cut yourself on it, Harron keeps the violence minimal, over the top and ghoulishly funny.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A withering condemnation of a culture where greed is a virtue, a culture that you don't have to feel guilty for laughing at.

USA Today Mike Clark

Exceedingly well cast and assembled with flashy visuals and pacing by Harron, this period piece is diminished by its relative pointlessness.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Has the feverish intensity of a bad dream, leavened with a subversive sense of humor that is both sophisticated and cracked.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The real highlight is when Bateman and his co-workers compare custom business cards in a grueling, ego-shattering game of one-upmanship that is so linked to their sense of self it might as well be Russian roulette.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

The film's details are spot-on, its tone ludicrously ironic, and its casting deft.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Pace is sleek, airless and apt.

Slate David Edelstein

Nearly perfect for what it is.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Neither bloodthirsty enough to trigger the gag reflex of anyone but the most anemic viewer nor clever enough to yield much in the way of particularly engrossing insights.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's so steeped in the coldness and inhumanity of its protagonist that it's ultimately more clinical than absorbing.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Harron validates and largely clarifies the work.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A second-rate nightmare: the Reagan generation meets Leatherhead with flickers of brilliance drowned in blood and snobbery, a corpse dressed by Bloomingdale's.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There's nothing beyond the bloodshed and gallows humor, just intellectually secondhand implications about materialism, conformity and misogyny.

TV Guide Ken Fox

It's not a great film, but let's face it: Considering the source, this is as good as it was ever going to get.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

In both senses of the word, American Psycho wastes its women.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A standard-issue slasher movie, stylishly shot, but with little to distinguish it from a long line of "Psycho"-spawned gorefests.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

(Harron) has made a passionless movie about a passionless man, and it's all supposed to add up to make us feel or even just think something, but what?

Film.com John Hartl

(Herron) just doesn't make the case that this book was worth filming.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Lacking any equivalent to the Sadean excess of Ellis's prose, it is also further evacuated of purpose.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A fairly loathsome and shallow movie about loathsome and shallow people, but it's almost worth catching to see star Christian Bale chew up the scenery.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A misfiring black comedy oddly reminiscent of all those bad 1990s movies about strippers getting killed at bachelor parties.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A high-end version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set in the rarefied bistros, boites and brokerages of Yuppie Manhattan in the 1980s.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Ambiguity can enrich a movie, but artists abdicate their responsibilities if they don't take a stance of any kind.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Stillborn, pointless piece of work.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Most of American Psycho just sits there, looking at trouble, rather than looking for it - complacent, overjoyed in fact to exist at all.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 34 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Fantastic. Bale's finest performance onscreen. I did have a problem with the "twist" at the end, but the rest is fantastic.

CLAUDIA A. gave it a9:
Amasing. Christian Bale is the best Patrick Bateman. The book is fantastic and the movie is also great.

Adam K gave it a10:
Great use of satire. Bale's acting is superb.

SlyEnemy gave it a2:
In comparison to the book, it contains none of the subvertive text (How would it?) that is necessary for the characters and "storyline" to grip onto. Without reading between the lines, we're left with a pointless story about a pointless man doing pointless things - A film which Withnail and I did many moons ago, without the grotesque and (film wise) unnecessary gore.

Orson O. gave it a10:
THE best film of 2000. Screw the stupid anti-suburban (its been done before better) American Beauty. American Psycho satirizes 90s materialistic narcisitic emptiness. People with wants, needs, and no ability to connect. Brilliant. Now "Feed me the kitty!"

Graham M. gave it a9:
First of all, this is a satire, not a comedy. Do not get those two very different things mixed up. Second, this is not a standard slasher movie, infact its hard to call this a slasher movie. This is not like a teen horror flick, such as freddy or Jason or Scream, This is far more sophisticated and intelligent. This is an intelligent film with very interesting characters and performances by great actors such as Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe as well as Reese Witherspoone. Once you start watching this film, it will be hard to look away because the beginnging sucks you right in with Bale's characters narration. To be honest, this isnt the goriest movie ever, far from it, this film has tension and suggests allot of the violence without showing. The ending is very thought provoking and will make you want to watch it through again, because to understand what happens, once isnt enough.

Ryan M. gave it an8:
Great book, good movie. One can only imagine what this movie could've been if tackled from a deeper, darker, artier style. Effective as satire and a look of the 80's, but could've been slightly edgier that delves into the twists and turns of the mind. Not bad though for a major release. Bale was excellently cast.

American Psycho Lions Gate Films

American Psycho
Lions Gate Films